1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multilayer ceramic capacitor and a fabricating method thereof, and more particularly, to a multilayer ceramic capacitor, which is capable of providing the relationship between the length difference of inner electrodes, which is caused by a height difference of an effective layer during a compressing process, and the reliability of products, and a manufacturing method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, multilayer ceramic capacitors include a plurality of ceramic dielectric sheets and inner electrodes interposed between the ceramic dielectric sheets. Multilayer ceramic capacitors are being widely used as capacitive parts in various electronic devices, due to their small size, high capacity and ease of mounting on a substrate.
Recently, as electronic products have become compact and multi-functional, chip components have also tended to become compact and highly functional. Following this trend, multilayer ceramic capacitors are required to be smaller but to have a higher capacitance than ever before.
Upon the design of products, in order to increase the capacity of products, capacitors are fabricated using a method of increasing an effective overlap area of an inner electrode contributing to a static capacitance or a method of increasing the number of layers by thinning a dielectric layer and an inner electrode layer. Accordingly, multilayer ceramic capacitors in which a dielectric layer is 1-2 μm thick, and more than 500 layers are laminated therein have recently been fabricated.
However, the increase in the number of laminations causes an increase in a cumulative height difference which forms a height difference by as much as a thickness of an inner electrode per a printed dielectric sheet. The cumulative height difference generates a recess due to material movement of the dielectric layer or protective cover part during a compressing process. Due to a density distribution caused by the difference of the recessed amount according to a position within the height difference region, an amount of elongation of the inner electrode layer or the dielectric layer is different, causing length variation and thickness nonuniformity.
Upon application of a voltage, shorting or IR characteristics are degraded by electric field concentration on a thin layer or a thin portion within the same layer, thus reducing the reliability of products.